Polly Rizova

“Young people today will have to learn organizations the way their forefathers learned farming.” -Peter Drucker

“The fact is that the organization of the large formal enterprises, governmental or private, in modern society is modeled on, is a rationalization of, tendencies that exist in all human groups.” -George Homans

Message

To say that organizations are ubiquitous to us, is to state the obvious. Hardly any of our daily human activities take place outside of not just one but multiple formal organizations. Chances are, the vast majority of us were born in a formal organization and we spend the rest of our lives as members of numerous others. We shape them and they shape us. To be a member of an organization, or moreover, to be given the responsibility of managing processes in a marketing, finance, accounting, or any other functional area for that matter, in the absence of a keen appreciation of the complexity of forms and a critical understanding of how organizations “really” work and change can be pernicious to managing our own personal and professional life chances and, what's more, to making decisions that shape those of others.

More specifically, to succeed in this world ruled and governed by formal organizations, and to improve our effectiveness both as a manager and a member, it is a must that we acquire and continuously develop a wide array of skills and competencies including: how to set up structures that facilitate work; how to deal with and accommodate change; and how to work with other people, for other people, and through other people. To these ends, the Organizational Development and Change area offers courses that examine the behaviors of large organizations – whether public, private, or not-for-profit – in terms of their functioning, performance and accountability to their various stakeholders.

Biography

Polly Rizova serves as Associate Professor of Management at Willamette University’s Atkinson Graduate School of Management. Dr. Rizova came to Willamette from the Department of Sociology and The College of General Studies at Boston University. She has also been a Visiting Professor at Wellesley College and Tufts University in Massachusetts.

A native of Bulgaria, Dr. Rizova began her career as a Regional Manager and Data Analyst at the Central Statistical Office in Sofia. In the United States, she first worked at the Office of Institutional Research and Policy Analysis at the State University of New York in Albany. She then moved to Boston where she has been an internal consultant for the Gillette Company. Her work there involved several studies into the design of the business processes and organizational structure of the company’s Corporate Research and Development Division .

Dr. Rizova earned a Bachelor and Master of Arts in Economics from the Higher Institute of Economics in Bulgaria. She then received a Diploma through a United Nations Fellowship at the International Statistics Program Center in Washington, D.C. She also holds a Master of Arts from the State University of New York at Albany and earned her Ph.D. in Sociology of Formal Organizations from Boston University.

Personal Interests

Reading about world history, philosophy and cultures, traveling, learning foreign languages, listening to music and watching films and documentaries, never fail to make me feel a citizen of the world who is inextricably and meaningfully connected to the human race for whose variety I have a genuine appreciation and respect.

Education

Ph.D., Boston University

M.A., State University of New York, Albany

Diploma, International Statistics Program Center

B.A.,M.A., Higher Institute of Economics (Sofia, Bulgaria)

Teaching and Research Interests

Selected Professional Activities

Reviewer for Organization Science, Reviewer for the Organization and Management Theory Division, The Academy of Management, Reviewer for the Technology and Innovation Management Division, The Academy of Management

Smith-Doerr, L., Manev. I., and Rizova, P. S. (2004). The Meaning of Success: Network Position and the Social Construction of Project Outcomes in an R&D Lab, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, Vol. 21, pp. 51-81.

Rizova, P. S. (2005). Whom to Ask and Whom Not to Ask: Social Networks, Social Capital and Success on R&D Projects. The 37th World Congress of the International Institute of Sociology, Stockholm, Sweden, July 5-9.

Rizova, P. S. (2004). Technological Innovation: Global Comparisons. Invited lecture to the ChineseNanjing Universitydelegation at the Boston University School of Management, 13-14 December 2004.

Smith-Doerr, L. and Rizova, P. S. (2003). The Meaning of Success: Network Position and the Social Construction of R&D Project Outcomes. American Sociological Association, "Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtables" Session, Atlanta, GA.